Convoluted Liasons
by s-aranth
Summary: 7th yr prefects Harry & Draco reach an odd understanding-soon thrown off-kilter by intrigue in Harry's past.H/D PreSlash with a slew of other pairings waiting in the wings.


Disclaimer: not mine, I just occasionally pull them outta the closet, ahem, CUPBOARD and play with 'em.  
  
Spoilers: HP& tP'sS  
  
Warning: slash ahoy in later chapters. Darkness - but not much.  
  
A/N: AU - ish, set in 7th year.  
  
Dedicated: Bracken (who beta-ed) & slept over.  
  
  
Chapter 1  
Shift in Perceptions  
  
Draco and I have a weird friendship - if you can even call it that.  
  
In our seventh year we were both made prefects (me turning down the position of Head Boy, although no one knows I was actually offered it) and decided to let bygones be bygones, put the past behind us and other such clichés.   
  
Occasionally we find ourselves together in the Prefects' Room but that doesn't necessarily mean that we talk. Quite the opposite. I stay with Ron and Hermione, when she's around, while he remains with Blaise and the Ravenclaws.   
  
So why, you may ask, is this odd? Well, whenever I have a problem I talk to him and whenever he has a problem he talks to me.   
  
Once we have got this off our collective chests, we return to our semi-ignoring state.  
  
I have been asked, by Herm (of course), to explain to her why I trust him. But I can't, no more than he can explain why he trusts me.  
  
But today has gone and unbalanced our peculiar arrangement…  
  
After quidditch practise I needed to go to the Prefects' Room to collect some of my things; namely my invisibility cloak. You see, my lodging is being moved to the central tower of the school so that all the prefects are available at all times to go to any house. All rooms have a fireplace and our own miniature Floo-Network that enables us to get into every house's common room and the ante-chamber of every Head of House.  
  
This was a new idea proposed by Dumbledore. Who knows why but I'm not complaining.  
  
He also, (in this moment of inspiration), decided that even though our rooms were separate, a door would join two adjacent rooms together. That way there would always be someone close if something were to happen.  
  
"Always be in pairs, it is safer for you and you will also have a witness so it is not your word against theirs."  
  
He further went on, (when Dumbledore starts something he does not believe in half measures), to place our names in the Sorting Hat and said hat was to determine who should form pairs by, in a rather lengthy and elaborate poem, who we would learn the most from.   
  
Draco and I were paired off. We already knew this was inevitable because whenever something like this crops up, we are always put together. What did come as a bit of a shock was Ron and Blaise's pairing. Herm was placed with some insignificant Ravenclaw called Bryce.  
  
It's going to be an interesting year.   
  
***  
  
"Malfoy," I say, knocking at our common door. We still sometimes call each other by our surnames, although without the cutting tone.  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
I take this as a "yes" and enter his room. He is standing at his wardrobe with only a fluffy white towel around his waist. He was obviously debating what to wear under his robes.   
  
I don't feel embarrassed and neither does he. We have passed that stage and without so much as a word spoken I sit on the opposite side of his bed, facing away from him to allow him to get dressed in the comfort of someone not being watched.  
  
When he is fully clad he comes over and sits next to me.   
  
One can tell it is early solely by the messiness of his usually impeccable hair (it's all mussed around and towel dried) and the vague puffiness of his eyes that belies the fact that he had a restless night last night.  
  
"So, Potter, what's on your mind?"  
***  
  
"Draco, what is wrong with me?"  
  
All pretence was removed from his voice. The vulnerability of The Boy who Lived was clearly visible by the hunched shoulders, downcast eyes and hands clenched in his lap.   
  
Draco was unsure as to what to do. Then, slowly, tentatively, he approached Harry as though the other boy were a wounded unicorn.  
  
"What do you mean?" Draco asked, facing the distraught boy.  
  
There was a definite unease in his stomach as he stared at Harry across the presentable distance of bed between them.   
  
"Why don't I want a girlfriend? Why am I scared of having a girlfriend? It's not normal," and looking up with a bit of a cocky smile trying, but not succeeding, to cover up his desolation, "why am I telling you this?"  
  
Draco actually smiled.   
  
"Firstly, Potter," adding much sarcastic tone into the surname, " you know I am the best person around and that any and all advice that I deem to give you should be meticulously written on never-ageing parchment and then placed in a tamperproof room for future reference."  
  
Harry chuckled.  
  
"And secondly," smile vanishing from Draco's face, "I want to help you, although if you tell anyone that I will start a vicious rumour involving you, whipped cream and a house elf."  
  
Draco became serious once again and enquired, "Why do you feel like you don't want a girlfriend?"   
  
Harry sighed.  
  
"I suppose it's because I've never really had one, never really wanted one." Catching Draco's eye he smirked, " sure I've been infatuated before but when it comes down to it, even when my 'dream girl' wants me, I feel sick to my stomach and pull away before the kiss can even be called a proper kiss.  
  
Everyone believes that I am strong, invincible but all that has made me insecure and isolated."  
  
Harry paused, pulled a face at himself, shook his head and stopped talking. This was getting way too personal.  
  
Draco sensed the change in Harry and immediately changed the topic slightly.  
"What brought this on?" he asked in a curious, albeit concerned, voice.  
  
"I guess it was that sixth year Ravenclaw, Teresa, that asked me to meet her last night in the Astronomy Tower to 'talk'. Drac, I realise she's hot but I just got so scared I left, I didn't even tell her why-"  
  
Draco reflected for a moment and for a brief time he forgot to hide his facial expressions. Harry watched in interest as the looks changed from professional, to concerned, to amused, to hopeful, and finally, to thoughtful.  
  
Just then Draco looked straight into Harry's emerald eyes and said, softly, "That's not all is it?"  
  
Harry, shocked at how perceptive Draco was, moved backwards and then after several seconds of sheer willpower overcame his instinctive action to run to his room, he answered, almost inaudibly, "No"  
***  
  
Draco could tell that whatever was coming was important and extremely difficult to say. In a very unDraco-like moment, he scooted closer to Harry (not too much) and took his hand, all the while watching Harry's expressive face as he mustered the determination to tell Draco.  
  
"Last night I had a dream," Harry hesitated and immediately awaited the snide remark that Draco was bound to make. Nothing was forthcoming. He continued.  
  
"My parents were there." He clutched Draco's hand tightly and received a quick, encouraging squeeze back.  
  
"My mom was saying to me that I mustn't believe the stories that I'll hear and that my parents love me very much."  
  
Harry stared at his and Draco's interlocked fingers, detached, as though they weren't his own.  
  
"Voldemort then entered." He stopped and a single glistening, painful tear rolled down his cheek and landed on Draco's pillow. How the pillow had come to be in his lap he would never know.  
  
"He looked at me with red eyes and started speaking to me. I don't remember the words but Mom was screaming at him and saying he mustn't hiss and curse her son in parselmouth. He wasn't cursing me, though I don't remember what he said.  
  
The History books are wrong. They say that he used to killing curse on my father and then he came after Mom and me.  
  
My father was alive - though stunned. He stood up and was aiming his wand at Voldemort.  
  
I saw it and said something to Voldemort and he turned. Green light exploded from his wand. My father fell.  
  
Mom looked at me with concern and shouted at Voldemort, "look what you've done. You have made him into a snake tongue." The venom issuing from her stung him and me.  
  
I felt we simultaneously cringed from her hatred and I then looked at her.  
  
A power came from within me and a green light appeared. She fell.  
  
The light bounced off of her and hit Voldemort. His eyes were large and then he just disappeared. My head burnt as a single tear from Mom landed on my forehead. It burnt a path down my head and, as she slid to the floor, I passed out."  
  
Draco by now was pressed up next to Harry and had grabbed him into a fierce embrace. Never before had he heard anything like this.  
  
And as Draco's mind whirled with the implications of what had been said, Harry shattered into a million ruined pieces.   
  
This boy will never be the same.  
  
Finis~  
  
(This be the part wherein you review.) 


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